Someone once said that all it takes is for one person to change the course of history. The right idea in the right time in the right place, that was all it took.
At this time and place, in a darkened theatre surrounded by an army of hybrids armed with powerful energy weapons, facing off against two of the deadliest lifeforms the galaxy had ever known, it would be understandably difficult to maintain that perspective. Especially when one woman just happened to be said lifeform's greatest enemy.
"YOU WILL DIE, DOCTOR, AT THE BEGINNING OF A NEW AGE," boasted Dalek Thay. Or was it Jast? Possibly Caan?
"PLANET EARTH WILL BECOME NEW SKARO!" declared Jast. The Doctor assumed it was Jast anyway, she remembered him having a high voice.
"Oh and what a world. With anything just the slightest bit different ground into the dirt," she remarked darkly. "That's Dalek Sec! Don't you remember? The cleverest Dalek ever and look what you've done to him."
The one she referred to was their former leader. A Dalek who had made a great sacrifice, changing everything about himself that would allow him to rightfully call himself a Dalek and intended to do the same with the rest of them. The others had decided this was unacceptable and now here he was, crawling on all fours, imprisoned in chains.
"Is that in your new empire, hmm?" pressed on the Doctor. "Is that the foundation for a whole new civilization?"
"My Daleks…" Sec croaked weakly. "Just understand this: if you choose death and destruction… then death and destruction will choose you."
"INCORRECT," dismissed Thay, "WE ALWAYS SURVIVE!"
"But at what cost?" The Doctor said
"HOW MANY IS IRRELAVENT," answered Thay. "ALL SPECIES AND ALL PLANETS WILL BE CRUSHED BY THE MIGHT OF DALEK SUPREMACY!"
"IT DOES NOT MATTER," chimed in Jast. "WITH THE DOCTOR'S DEATH, THE TIME WAR WILL END IN DALEK VICTORY!"
"And how long will it be until you lose the next war, Dalek Jast?" Their eyestalks swivelled back to the Doctor. "Look around at your army. I don't see any bonded polycarbide or energy shields protecting these soldiers. If you couldn't bring about total Dalek conquest in the old Mark III travel machines, how well do you think you're gonna manage with this lot?"
Jast's voice raised in feverish pitch. "RESOURCES WILL BE ACQUIRED! IMPROVEMENTS WILL BE MADE! THE DALEK HUMANS ARE MERELY A TEMPORARY MEASURE UNTIL PURE DALEKS CAN BE BORN AGAIN!"
"What was that?" The Doctor looked around at the assembled army. "You all heard that, didn't you? Apparently, you're not gonna be around forever. Is that what you want?"
Thay and Jast turned their eyestalks to each other. Had they any features to portray their expressions, the Doctor imagined they would probably be quite concerned. Perhaps even worried.
"It is the Dalek way, is it not?" took up Sec.
"YOU WILL BE SILENT!" ordered Thay, but Sec's voice only grew louder.
"Even your claim of making 'pure' Daleks is flawed! Do you really think any self-respecting Dalek could call itself pure, knowing they were bred and grown from an inferior species? Could you? How long, do you think, would it be until those Daleks are fighting and destroying one another over the very thing that is meant to unite them?!"
"SILENCE!"
"THEY ARE DALEKS! THEY WILL OBEY, THEY WILL CONQUER AND DESTROY!"
Sec's and the Doctor's eyes met. Though no words were exchanged between them, the two seemed to both understand that they had the same end goal in mind. Sec knew the Doctor was a resourceful being. Time and time again, she had found ways to stop the Daleks that they wouldn't have even begun to conceive. It was why she was their greatest enemy. Sec was confident that this time it would be no different.
"Then prove it!" he snarled.
"Go on!" invited the Doctor, holding his arms wide. "Baptise them!"
"DALEKS, TAKE AIM!"
At Thay's command, the Dalek humans clicked the safeties off their weapons. Half angled their barrels at the Doctor. The other half at Sec. Their faces were rigid, blank, displaying no apparent emotion for what they were about to do.
"What are you waiting for? Give the command!" growled the Doctor.
"EXTERMINATE!"
The Doctor tensed. Her companions clutched one another, hiding their faces. Sec braced himself. All waited for the barrage of energy that would illuminate their bodies.
"EXTERMINATE!"
But there was nothing. Twice the order had been given, yet no shots were fired.
"OBEY! DALEKS WILL OBEY!" barked Thay.
"They're not firing," said Yaz in a frightened whisper. "What have you done?"
Thay addressed the nearest hybrid. "YOU WILL OBEY! EXTERMINATE!"
The hybrid's response was one that no pure Dalek would even think of giving.
"Why?"
"DALEKS DO NOT QUESTION ORDERS!"
"IF THEY WILL NOT OBEY, THEN THEY MUST DIE!" Thay turned his gun on the defiant hybrid and blasted him with two streams of neutronic energy.
"Get down!" cried the Doctor.
Her companions crouched behind the chairs while he took cover facing the stage. Sec managed to drop to the stage just as the Daleks opened fire, though not at him or the Doctor but at their would-be masters.
Sec did his best to keep his head low, but more than one energy blast came dangerously close to him. He suddenly felt the chains that bound him click open by themselves and looked to see the Doctor holding her sonic device before her. Without waiting to be told, Sec rolled off the stage and out of the line of fire. He crawled over to the Doctor, watching the scene unfolding in front of them.
Thay was first, followed soon after by Jast. The top halves of their casings exploded in a shower of fire and dalekanium debris. At their deaths, the hybrids ceased fire and relaxed, like a great weight had been taken from them.
The Doctor was the first on her feet, approaching Sec and helping him up.
"You okay?" She asked.
"I… will live," Sec answered.
Then, in one moment of horrible realisation he remembered: Caan was still alive and connected to the military computer. Unfortunately, she realised this just as the Dalek human hybrids clutched their heads and screamed as one.
"NO!" Sec cried at almost the same time the Doctor did.
He made for the closest one, to take him in his arms, even though he knew there was nothing he could do but watch them die. It was over in less than five seconds.
"An entire species. Genocide!" the Doctor spat.
The two of them knew they only had one course of action. Using the hole Thay and Jast blasted in the back of the stage, they set off back to the genetics laboratory through the sewers. The Doctor and Sec went on ahead with the companions bringing up the rear. Sec noticed that the pig slave especially was having trouble walking without aid.
The Doctor was silent the entire time, driven on by a single purpose. It left Sec some time to gather his thoughts, with one inescapable fact sinking in with every step they took: the Daleks were all gone. The Cult of Skaro was dead. Their only hope for survival, for a new beginning, was now lying at their feet back at the theatre and certain passages throughout the sewers.
Every time they walked past the hundreds of corpses that littered the tunnels, it only hammered in home for Sec that he was now both the first and last of his kind. Even if he had survived all of this, what was his purpose now? Where was he supposed to go? What was he meant to do? His last, great effort to save the Dalek race had ended in utter failure and now…
He gritted his teeth and with great effort, pushed those thoughts aside. Now was not the time to dwell on such things. Right now, he and the Doctor had to try and deal with Dalek Caan. They were almost at the lab. He had an idea of what the Doctor might do, as she had done with other hostile species. She would offer Caan an alternative to further destruction. Sec knew Caan and he knew he likely wouldn't accept the offer.
Before he knew it, the two of them were stood before Caan. He was at the far end of the lab, still hooked into the military computer. He made no move, no attempt to escape or to fight.
"Now what?" asked the Doctor.
"YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, just think about it, Dalek Caan!" She placed her hands in her pockets and walked towards him purposefully. "Your entire species has been wiped out and now the Cult of Skaro has been eradicated, leaving only you and Sec."
"HE IS NOT A TRUE DALEK! HE IS AN ABOMINATION!" dismissed Caan.
"Have you truly learned nothing, Caan?" pleaded Sec. "Can you not see that it was precisely that sort of thinking that has reduced us to this? Even now, when we are the last of our kind, you would not hesitate to destroy me."
He began to shake. "YOU ARE IMPURE! YOU ARE TAINTED! YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED! YOU WILL BOTH BE EXTERMINATED!"
"No! No more!" bellowed the Doctor, causing Caan to retreat slightly. The Time Lord softened her voice again. "I've just seen one genocide. I won't cause another. Caan, let me help you."
Caan did make his choice. A declaration of three words.
"EMERGENCY TEMPORAL SHIFT!"
Even as the Doctor dashed for him, Caan was already gone. Sec didn't move. He just stood there, staring at the spot where Caan had been, only vaguely aware of the arrival of the others behind him. He knew that it wouldn't work, that Caan wouldn't take the offer. Even by Dalek standards, he had always been stubborn and single minded in his thoughts and beliefs.